The Unwinnable War
by Mandalore the Invincible
Summary: When it is discovered that an extragalactic Empire is behind numerous attacks on various Federation starships and starbases in the year 2416, an all-out war breaks out between the two governments. The entire galaxy's only hope of survival is an old enemy that may not even be able to stop the onslaught. (Mainly original SW characters, crew of Enterprise-F/others in Star Trek.)
1. Prologue

**24 BBE, 0315 hours**

 **SSD** ** _Shadow Hand_**

 **Location unknown**

Waking slowly, the captain of the Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer _Shadow Hand_ became suddenly aware of two things: firstly, he could only vaguely feel his limbs. Secondly, what seemed like every alarm on the ship was going off at once. Regaining his sense of feeling in his extremities, Captain Koras got up and looked around. From his position, he could see the entirety of the security foyer behind the main bridge, bathed in darkness. Koras, still mildly dazed from his slumber of unknown duration, quickly moved to the forward section of the command deck, toward the main bridge.

 _The lights_ , the captain thought, _what happened to them?_ Everything seemed to be either offline or getting there quickly.

The few crewmen he saw on his five-second journey appeared to be in a similar state as he had been mere minutes before. He passed through the threshold to the bridge and immediately caught eyes of his XO lying face down on the command walkway, the upper-right half of his torso hanging over the edge of the starboard crew pit. Captain Koras rushed to his first officer's side and began attempting to rouse him.

"Commander, wake up," the captain said while shaking him. "Wake up!"

A low groan escaped the commander's mouth and, seeing the crew pit floor several meters below, scrambled backwards. The commander stood up and turned around, looking at his captain for the first time.

"Captain? What happened? Where are we?"

The captain was expecting such questions, but, as he had no answers, simply replied, "I don't know."

The pair of officers looked around the bridge, seeing the consoles with empty chairs, their crewers out cold on the floor next to them. A noise from the crew pit reached the ears of the captain and his commander, causing them to spin around and peer into the dimly-lit operations pit.

One of the crewers in the pit was slowly standing up, attempting to get his bearings. The crewer turned his attention up toward the command walkway where his captain and executive officer were standing. Doing his best to expel the grogginess and ignore his sore muscles, he snapped to attention. "Sirs!"

"Crewman," the captain replied. He was about to give an order to the crewman, but over the klaxons, he heard noises emanating from the rest of the bridge. Upon investigation, the noises were other crew members waking up. The newly-awakened crewmen more-or-less replicated the first crewman's actions, roughly snapping to attention and giving a slightly-slurred "Sirs!"

The captain was in his element now. He had a crew to command and a mystery on his hands. "Listen up, crewmen! I don't know what's happened here or why our systems are offline, but we're going to find out. Get your consoles working and give me a status report."

Something clicked in the captain's brain. _Fierfek_ , he screamed in his head. "And get the sensors and com system operational! Get me a readout on the rest of the fleet!" He couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to him that the rest of the ships under his command may be suffering through similar events. Koras rushed to the viewports at the front of the bridge and peered out. The fleet was where it should be—but with no running lights. The rest of the fleet was just as nonfunctional as _Shadow Hand_ was.

The commander walked over to Koras and asked, "Could the Rebels have done this?"

"Possibly. But there's nothing we can do but wait and see, and hope we can get our ships operational before they attack, if they attack."

"This is not good…"

 **24 BBE, 1030 hours**

 **Location unknown**

"Are you sure?" Captain Koras asked lowly.

The addressed officer replied, "Positive. The astrogational computer can't make heads or tails of our location."

"Could we be in the Unknown Regions?"

"No, sir. If we were in the Unknown Regions, we'd still be able to identify other stars in the galaxy, and we can't."

"Rouse the Admiral," the captain ordered.

"Aye, sir."

The XO turned to Koras. "Well, we can rule out the possibility of Rebel attack," he said with a grim smile.

Koras turned to address an officer in one of the crew pits. "Science! Any indication of how we got here? A wormhole, perhaps?"

"Negative," the disheartened crewman returned.

"Damn…" the captain whispered. "Send out our complete complement of probes. Program them to chart hyperspace routes to the nearest inhabited planets."

"Aye sir!"

 **23 BBE, 1500 hours**

 **Dominion Attack Ship 0459**

 **Outskirts of Dominion territory**

"Sir, sensors are detecting a small object fifty million kilometers distant. It appears to be a probe, but the design is not recognized," the Jem'Hadar manning sensors told his commanding Vorta.

"Oh? This should be interesting. Divert course to intercept. Have the squadron follow."

The group of four Jem'Hadar attack ships changed course slightly and accelerated. Mere minutes later and they were in visual range.

The Vorta looked through the eyepiece at the small probe before him. Curiously shaped, it was a rough sphere with several appendages similar to tentacles trailing behind. It reminded him of an Earth animal one of his previous copies had seen while looking through the database of a captured Starfleet vessel.

A Jem'Hadar began listing details the sensors had gathered. "Approximately two meters long, composed of an unknown allow. It appears to contain mapping devices, although we cannot readily confirm this. This craft matches nothing in the database."

"If it's a probe, destroy it before it relays its location back to its carrier," the Vorta ordered tensely. "We don't know who could be watching us with that thing."

Seconds later, the black metal probe was in pieces, its equipment no longer functional.

"Well?" the Vorta asked impatiently. "Did you get it?"

A Jem'Hadar said irritably, "Yes. But the probe appears to have sent a message before we destroyed it. Its owners know we are here."

The Jem'Hadar fourth growled, "Let them come!"

 **23 BBE, 1505 hours**

 **SSD** ** _Shadow Hand_**

 **Location unknown**

"Admiral, one of our probes has detected signs of life!"

Admiral Yularen turned to the officer and said slowly, "Elaborate."

The officer continued, "Probe 991 detected four alien vessels three minutes ago. It has sent its location, but the probe is no longer broadcasting a signal."

"Send one of the cruisers to investigate," the admiral replied.

"Yes, sir."

 **23 BBE, 1506 hours**

 **Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser** ** _Arrestor_**

 **En route to last-known coordinates of IPD-991**

"Commander, we're approaching the coordinates!" the helm officer called.

"Take us out of hyperspace," the commander responded.

The blue vortex of hyperspace disappeared, replaced by the star-covered background of realspace. Four of those stars were not stars at all, but were instead alien fighters; the same fighters that had destroyed the Imperial probe.

 _Arrestor_ 's sensors knew this, and by extension, so did the sensor operator, who passed it on to the ship's commander.

"Sensors are picking up four small vessels, approximately 90 meters long. They match the sensor records beamed to the fleet by the probe."

Without warning, a loud klaxon went off. An automated voice droned, "Intruder alert. Intruder alert."

The sensors officer stared at his console in disbelief. "Somehow, these aliens have boarded us without using shuttles. Internal sensors are picking up nearly 100 aliens spread across the ship."

"Send security teams to all infested areas. We'll teach them what it means to trespass on Imperial property. Destroy them!" the commander ordered fiercely.

 **23 BBE, 1506 hours**

 **Dominion attack ship 0459**

"Boarding parties successfully transported aboard," a Jem'Hadar soldier informed the Vorta.

"What of the ship?"

"It is 600 meters long, unknown design. No known power system or warp drive. Sensors are picking up dozens of possible weapons emplacements."

A rapid beep emanated from one of the consoles. The Jem'Hadar operating it shouted, "Vorta! Boarding parties report humans operating that vessel!"

"What?! Destroy it immediately! All ships, attack!"

Before anyone moved a muscle, a quad-energy bolt jumped from the alien vessel and landed on a Jem'Hadar starship. The turbolaser bolt overloaded its shields and incinerated the vessel. Two more energy bolts lanced out and struck two Jem'Hadar fighters, producing similar results. The last launched into evasive maneuvers, firing phased-polaron beams at the alien behemoth.

"Weapons have no effect!" a Jem'Hadar screamed.

"Ramming speed!" the Vorta ordered.

The last thing the Vorta commander saw was the massive figure of an alien warship rapidly approaching, until everything went black.


	2. Chapter 1

**A few brief notes before we begin:**

 **1.** This is my first fanfiction, and I may not finish it (although I really hope to, I've got an epic ending planned out. No spoilers though!). I only have considerably less than an adequate plot thought up so far, and I'm constantly brainstorming for more, however it is important to understand that I am _not_ a good writer. While my vocabulary is fairly extensive, knowing words is not good writing. It's knowing how to use them that counts

 **2.** You should know right from the start that I believe Star Wars technology is superior to Star Trek's (save for the Q), and I will be using every ounce of creative power I have to counter this disadvantage.

I don't own Star Wars or Star Trek, they belong to their respective owners, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Now, on with the story.

 _Captain's log, January 14, 2416. Today is the five-year anniversary of the end of the most devastating war in the quadrant's history. Rather than join in the festivities, however,_ Enterprise _has been running down leads all over the quadrant. For the last month, we've been on a mission to eliminate Orion pirate threats and investigate why the Syndicate has stepped up their attacks against the Federation. Our next destination is the Laurentian system, where Orion border raiders have been attacking both civilian and Starfleet vessels._

 **Chapter One**

 **USS** ** _Enterprise_** **, near the Laurentian System**

 **January 14, 2416**

Captain Va'Kel Shon stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge of the USS _Enterprise_ -F and took a look around, as he had done every day since being issued command years earlier. But he had never performed this ritual on a day as momentous as this. Just half a decade earlier, the entire Alpha Quadrant had been on the verge of extinction. Their chances of survival were nonexistent. But here they were, five years later, more than a little banged up but alive.

Commander Samuel Winters, _Enterprise_ 's XO, looked up as Shon took the command chair and said, "Captain, we're about to arrive in the Laurentian system."

"Thank you, Mr. Winters," Shon replied. He was deeply troubled that the Orions had made it this far into one of the Neutral Zones without being detected, let alone the three-way Neutral Zone between the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans. In the last week, two Starfleet ships were destroyed outside Laurentian, lost with all hands for a total of more than 650 crewmen. The second vessel destroyed was an Akira-class escort, the USS _Nevada_ , that managed to send out a distress call before they were boarded and seized. By the time the Laurentian Militia Fleet, all of 7 Danube-class runabouts, arrived on scene, the _Nevada_ was long destroyed, and her attackers long gone.

"How could the Orions have gotten past the border and not be spotted by a single starship or starbase?" Winters asked curiously.

"I intend to find out, Commander. However they did it, it's one hell of a trick." Captain Shon said quietly. He had no clue how it was possible. "What do we know about the vessels that attacked the Starfleet ships?"

"In the _Nevada_ 's distress call, she identified her attackers as being in three twenty-year old light cruisers of Orion design. They should pose no threat for the _Enterprise_."

"Remember, Commander, that in order to have overwhelmed two individual Starfleet ships, they must have some kind of upgraded weapons system."

"None of the destroyed ships were a refitted _Odyssey-_ class star cruiser."

"True enough."

In the months following the Iconian War, Starfleet decided they needed to be prepared for anything. They began pulling entire fleets off of patrol duty and retrofitting them for months at a time. _Enterprise_ was one of the first ships into drydock. After six months in her temporary home, the _Enterprise_ emerged a new ship. She was basically the same as any other Odyssey-class on the outside, except for the additional six more phasers, three more torpedo launchers, bringing the total up to 18 phaser banks and seven torpedo tubes. Two hangars were also added for Delta-class fighters, each holding two wings of four.

On the interior, however, that was another story. All but one of the ship's holodecks were ripped out, the cargo bays expanded for more ordnance and supplies, and the old warp core was removed and replaced with a new design, which generated nearly one-and-a-half times the amount of power the old one did. The crew was packed into half the space, and the other half of the crew quarters were redesigned into barracks for Starfleet Marines. Two of the cavernous cargo bays were restructured to serve as rapid troop deployment platforms for the 600 aforementioned Starfleet Marines, with the cargo transporters modified to function as troop transporters, each able to transport 150 soldiers at a time. There was another piece of technology gifted to the Federation by the Romulan Republic: the cloaking device, which is incredibly useful in somewhat delicate scout missions _._

In the category of propulsion, the ship's maneuvering thrusters were redesigned to allow for greater turn rate, now rated for 10 degrees per second. The new Odyssey was a starship built for the defense of the Federation.

An insistent beep filled the air, emanating from the tactical station. "Captain, sensors are detecting a ship decloaking 1,000 kilometers off port," the ship's tactical officer, a Caitian Lieutenant Kyona, announced. "Two more decloaking off starboard, equal distance. They've matched our course and speed. Orion power signatures."

"Red alert, shields up! Charge weapons and lock on target. Hail them," Shon commanded.

After several seconds, Lieutenant Kyona said, "They are not responding, Captain."

"They obviously didn't run an extensive scan of our ship," Commander Winters interjected. "They're fools to think they can win here."

"That's one possibility," Shon replied. "Tactical, fire a phaser beam on full. Maybe that'll make them back down."

"Their shields are down to 90%. They're still coming, sir."

"Alright then, we do this the hard way. Target their weapons, warp and impulse engines, disable them. Ensure they can't run away."

"Yes, sir." Kyona responded. "Firing phasers."

Several orange-red phasers lanced out from the _Enterprise_ and struck the Orion cruisers. Within seconds, their weapons and shields were destroyed, and their engines soon followed.

"Their engines have been destroyed," Lieutenant Kav reported. "They're dead in the water. Our shields are holding at 95%. No damage."

The _Enterprise_ dropped out of warp and came about to face their attackers. The Orion cruisers' shields were gone, engines destroyed, and they had no means of defense. _Enterprise_ could have easily finished them with a photon torpedo each. However, Shon was a merciful man. Or perhaps vengeful for the 650 dead officers and their families.

"Open hailing frequencies," Shon said.

"Open."

"This is Captain Shon of the Federation starship _Enterprise_. You have committed illegal acts of piracy and murder against the United Federation of Planets, and assault on Starfleet vessels, as well as illegal possession of a cloaking device. You are hereby ordered to surrender your vessels immediately."

"They are responding, sir." the ops officer, Lieutenant Jirelle Kav, informed.

"On screen."

"This is Captain Le'nor of the independent vessel _Plundered Treasures_. What evidence do you have to support your accusation?"

"Do you take me for a fool?" Shon replied hotly. "You are responsible for the destruction of two Starfleet vessels and the deaths of more than 600 people. You will submit and prepare to be boarded immediately, or we will destroy your ships."

"Alright, alright," the Orion relented. "We will do as you demand."

"Kav, prepare to transport a division of Marines over," Shon ordered.

"Aye, sir."

"Energize."

After she initiated the transport, 50 Starfleet Marines were dematerialized, transferred, and reconstructed in various places on the lead Orion cruiser.

After several minutes had passed, Kav said, "We're receiving a transmission from the boarding team."

"On speakers," Shon responded.

" _Enterprise_ , this is Lieutenant Simmons on the Orion cruiser. The crew has been subdued and the ship is completely in our control. No casualties."

"Very good, Lieutenant." Shon said. "Prepare them for transport to cargo bay four."

"Yes, sir."

Shon turned to Winters, "Oversee preparations for the Orion crew in the cargo bay."

"Aye, Captain." The commander stood up and strode off the bridge.


End file.
